


So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

by ThujaTreeSilverMoon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Dreams, F/M, I Made Myself Cry, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, everyone but vader is just mentioned, i dont even know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:47:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25390003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThujaTreeSilverMoon/pseuds/ThujaTreeSilverMoon
Summary: In his sleep, Anakin Skywalkers ghosts came back to haunt Darth Vader.
Relationships: 501st Legion & Anakin Skywalker, 501st Legion & Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader & Shmi Skywalker, CT-21-0408 | Echo & Anakin Skywalker, CT-21-0408 | Echo & CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555, CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555 & Anakin Skywalker, CT-6116 | Kix & Anakin Skywalker, CT-7567 | Rex & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

Darth Vader soon learned to hate his dreams. In his sleep he heard their whispers and screams, last words of dying friends and curses of his many foes. Long forgotten faces filled the nights, faces and names that made him want to scream, break, burn...feel. Darth Vader didn't feel anything anymore. That part of him had died with her. Or so he had thought.

In his sleep, Anakin Skywalkers ghosts came back to haunt Vader. And with them came fire, blood and hatred. With them came fear, loyalty and a strange sense of belonging. With them came warmth, longing and an all consuming fierce love. 

(Anakins love had always brought destruction. Vaders was much the same.)

His mothers voice was gentle. Her hands were tender and when she looked at him her face lit up with pride. It never stayed that way, though. Instead, her hands were soon covered in blood and her face lifeless. She looked at him with nothing but fear in her eyes. Worse than that was how blurry her features were. The years had wiped his mothers face from his memory.

Obi-Wan was smiling, a mischievous glint in his blue eyes. It was a strange thing indeed, to love someone so fiercly and hate them at the same time. They had shared over a thousand moments together, some sad, some happy, some angry. In his dreams they all blured together in a bittersweet mess of love, regret and infinite sorrow.

(Time had taken his mothers face, but nothing ever made him forget anything about Kenobi. No matter how hard he tried.)

Ahsoka. A wide grin, always a snippy comeback on her lips, two lightsabers in her hands. She had been so young, so proud and so, so brave. In his dreams, she was never the young woman who had wished him good luck with fondness blazing in her eyes, before heading to Mandalore. No, Ahsoka always looked exactly like she had the day she left the order. He had called her Snips, a lifetime ago.

(In his dreams, he still did.)

Padme was every bit the queen and senator she had been in life. Beautiful brown eyes like daggers, she shouted at him, calling him a monster for doing what he did. She argued with him, silver-tongued as always. She had been different in their last shared moment. Now, all the fear for their child was gone, replaced by resentment for it's father. There was always a flicker of her faith in him though, almost as if his dreams wanted to taunt him.

(Hatred and faith could exist at the same time, he would learn later. Padme had two children, after all.)

The clones echoed in his dreams as well. He had forgotten his mothers face and the sound of her laugh, but he remembered every single trooper who had lived and died under his command. His men, his cunning, brave, sorrowful, heartbreakingly loyal men. Full of laughter, life and love. He had taken everything from them, without even giving it a second thought. Their free will, their loyalties, their identities, even their names.

(The 501st would have paid every price for their general. This one had been too high.)

Captain Rex had been by his side throughout all of it. Now, his shadow seemed to taunt Vader, following him through his dreams. Never quite there, always just outside his reach. His silence struck harder than any accusation.

Kix accusations followed him around. His medic, the only one brave enough to drag his stubborn general to the medbay against his will. He had tried to help Tup. If he'd known then...

In his dreams, he still recalled the six survivors of Teth. Coric, Attie, Ridge, Nax, Zeer and Del. He had been impressed by the determination they had needed to get out of that hell alive... but that had been Anakin Skywalker. Vader knew true hell and he didn't even remember if any of the Teth survivors were still alive.

(Some of them did walk through his hell with him. Any of them would have prefered death.)

The last time Anakin Skywalker had seen Fives, he had been half mad, trying to kill Lord Sidious. The last time he had seen Echo, the clone had been a cyborg, almost tortured out of his mind by the Seperatists. He didn't remember them like that. Instead they were Fives and Echo again, young, bold and the very definition of trouble. Inseperable.

(Until they weren't)

All his men were nothing but fading echos. Jesses pride, Dogmas stubborn loyalty, Tups kindness, Hardcases enthusiasm,...So much loss of potential and life blured together, haunting Vader every night.

Then Darth Vader would wake. He would tell himself that his past was dead. It shattered with a single order. It died with screams and fire. It faded with a single blue lightsaber in the snow. 

(Every night, Anakin Skywalkers ghosts came back to haunt Darth Vader. And with them came loss and agony, unlike anything he had ever known.)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from one of Robert Frosts poems. I know this story is a horrible mess, but I'm having feelings about clone wars.


End file.
